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ADDRESS 

UPON THE CELEBRATION OF THE 



OF THE ADOPTION BY THE 

General Court of a Resolve vesting the 

Inhabitants of Worcester with the 

Powers and Privileges of other 

Towns within the Province 

Mechanics Hall, 
Worcester, Massachusetts 
Wednesday, June 14, 1922 



CHARLES G. WASHBURN 



ADDRESS 

UPON THE CELEBRATION OF THE 

Ctoo ^unbretitlb ^nmber£iarp 

OF THE ADOPTION BY THE 

General Court of a Resolve vesting the 

Inhabitants of Worcester with the 

Powers and Privileges of other 

Towns within the Province 

Mechanics Hall, 
Worcester, Massachusetts 
Wednesday, June 14, 1922 



CHARLES G. WASHBURN 



THE DAVIS PRESS 

WORCEBTEK, MASSACHUSETTS 

1922 



.Wo w? 



V 



■ ■ ■ -•;:<rr's? O.'fics. 



ADDRESS 

Men and Women of Worcester, sprung from 
many races, in many of the older countries of the 
world, north, south, east and west; inheritors of 
many creeds and many traditions; now owing 
allegiance to but one country — 

The United States of America 

and to but one flag — 

The Stars and Stripes 

We are met together upon a memorable occa- 
sion and in a memorable place. The occasion 
being the two hundredth anniversary of the vest- 
ing of the inhabitants of Worcester with the powers 
and privileges of other towns within the Province 
and the place one in which our citizens have met, 
often in times of rejoicing and often in times of 
sorrow, for more than three score years. This 
country is still young. Something less than two 
years ago, we celebrated the three hundredth 
anniversary of the landing of the Pilgrims at 
Plymouth Rock — and three hundred years is a 
very small space upon the pages, even of recorded 
history. I remember visiting, some years ago, a 
tomb in Egypt where the pigments seemed as 
fresh as when they were appUed to its interior 
decoration four thousand years ago. One may 
now gaze with admiration upon the majestic 
outlines of the Parthenon, which, had it not been 
for the destructive hand of man, would to-day 



[4] 

be as perfect as when it was fashioned by the 
genius of Phidias more than two thousand years 
ago. 

Nearly seventeen hundred years of Enghsh 
history had been written between the crossing 
of the British Channel by Caesar and the sailing 
of the Mayflower. During three hundred years 
there has developed here the mightiest nation in 
the world upon which, more than ever before, is 
dependent the progress of mankind towards more 
permanently stable conditions. I say this because 
it is here that is being tried upon a vast scale the 
workings of a representative, democratic govern- 
ment, towards which system all the governments 
of the earth must eventually tend, if progress 
towards a higher civilization is made. 

While it is with the history of our own com- 
munity that we are most concerned this evening, 
we are so closely related to state and nation, of 
which we are an integral part, that some mention 
of the development of each, during the past three 
hundred years, may properly be made. I remem- 
ber being present at a very interesting occasion 
twenty-five years ago when the Bradford Manu- 
script History was presented to the Governor of 
the Conamonwealth, Roger Wolcott. This history 
of the Plymouth Colony from its inception to the 
year 1647, in the handwriting of Governor William 
Bradford, had, in some mysterious way, fallen 
into the custody of the Bishop of London. Largely 
through the efforts of Senator Hoar and through 
the good offices of our Ambassador of that day at 
the Court of St. James, Mr. Bayard, the manu- 



[5] 

script was returned to us and is now in the State 
Library in Boston. The conversation between 
Mr. Hoar and the Bishop is interesting. Said 
Mr. Hoar, after looking at the volume and read- 
ing the records on the flyleaf: 

"My Lord, I am going to say something which 
you may think rather audacious. I think this 
book ought to go back to Massachusetts." 

"Well," said the Bishop in reply, "I did not 
know that you cared anything about it." 

"Why," replied Mr. Hoar, "if there were in 
existence in England a history of King Alfred's 
reign for thirty years, written by his own hand, 
it would not be more precious in the eyes of 
Englishmen than this manuscript is to us." 

This record should be of the profoundest inter- 
est to every citizen in the United States, par- 
ticularly to us of Massachusetts, presenting, as it 
does, a picture of the abandonment, by the 
Pilgrims, of their pleasant EngUsh homes; the 
flight to Holland; the sojourn in Ley den; the 
embarkation at Delfthaven; the voyage in the 
Mayflower across the stormy seas of the Atlantic ; 
and the landing at Plymouth Rock, of which 
Senator Hoar said : 

"There is nothing like it in human annals 
since the story of Bethlehem." 

After the first settlement of Worcester had 
been broken up by the Indians in King Philip's 
war, a meeting of those interested was held in 
Cambridge on March 14, 1679, for the purpose of 
considering the expediency of again settling the 
town. As a result of this meeting, it was resolved 



[6] 

'Ho settle the said plantation some time the next 
summer come twelve months, which shall be in 
the year of our Lord 1680." 

The town was to be built to attain six ends, 
which were enumerated, chief among them ''the 
better convenity of attending God's worship" 
and "the better education of their children," but 
provision was also to be made "for the better 
accommodation of trades people." 

Nothing of a practical kind was done until the 
General Court threatened to forfeit the grant 
unless the settlement were made; accordingly an 
agreement was entered into April 24, 1684, with 
that end in view. It was voted that the plantation 
be divided into 480 lots, three of these to be set 
apart for the maintenance of a saw mill, and three 
for a grist mill. To the builders and maintainers 
of works promoting useful trades, and for a fulling 
mill, when the place is capable thereof, six lots. 
From 1686 until the fall of 1713, no record appears 
of the transactions which took place in the settle- 
ment and during much of that time the country 
was exposed to the ravages of the Indians, and, 
in consequence, the settlement was almost entirely 
deserted. 

The third attempt to effect a permanent settle- 
ment was made in October, 1713, when Jonas Rice 
came from Marlborough and built a log house on 
Sagatabscot Hill, and by 1721 the population had 
so increased that the freeholders and proprietors 
petitioned the General Court for an act of incor- 
poration in response to which the following resolu- 
tion was passed on June 14, 1722: 



[7] 

"Resolved, That the inhabitants of Worcester 
be vested with the powers and privileges of other 
towns within the Province, and that it be earnestly 
recommended to that Council only of the seven 
churches which did meet at Worcester in Septem- 
ber, 1721, to whom the contending parties sub- 
mitted their differences relating to the Rev. Mr. 
Andrew Gardner, that the said Council proceed 
and go to Worcester on or before the first Wednes- 
day in September next, to finish what is further 
necessary to be done for the procuring and estab- 
lishing of peace in said town, according to the 
submission of the parties; and that the Freeholders 
and inhabitants of Worcester be assembled on the 
last Wednesday in September next, at ten o'clock 
in the forenoon, to choose all town officers as by 
law accustomed for towns to do at their annual 
meeting in March ; and that, at the opening of the 
meeting, they first proceed to the choice of a 
moderator by written votes." 

It was not until after the adoption of the State 
Constitution, in 1780, that the first act was passed 
declaring towns within this government to be 
bodies politic and corporate. 

The first town meeting, called under the fore- 
going resolve, was held September 28, 1722. The 
necessary town officers were chosen, who entered 
at once upon the discharge of their duties. It 
should be remembered that the Province of 
Massachusetts Bay was governed by the Charter 
of William and Mary and had been since 1691, 
when the Colony of Massachusetts Bay in New 
England, and the Colony of New Plymouth in 



[8] 

New England, together with the Province of 
Maine and the territory called Arcadia or Nova 
Scotia, were united under the name of the Province 
of Massachusetts Bay in New England. 

At the head of the government was the royal 
Governor appointed by the King during his 
pleasure. He had a full veto over legislation, was 
the Captain General of the Militia, the Chief 
Executive officer of the Province and the King's 
personal representative. His Honor, the Lieuten- 
ant Governor, also appointed by the King, suc- 
ceeded to the functions, though not the title of 
Governor, upon the latter's removal, absence or 
death. The King reserved to himself admiralty 
jurisdiction in order to enforce the commercial 
acts of Parliament. Owing largely to the Gover- 
nor's dependence for his salary on the House of 
Representatives, the latter gradually acquired 
control of the Province. By 1745 the royal Gover- 
nor became little more than an administrative 
figure dependent upon his personal influence for 
what little power he was able to exert. 

It is not surprising that the spirit of inde- 
pendence should have grown strong between the 
time of the first settlement in 1620 and the 
Revolutionary War. The people of Plymouth 
Colony were left pretty much to themselves until 
1691, when, as we have seen, they were united 
with the Colony of Massachusetts Bay by the 
Charter of William and Mary. The people of 
Massachusetts Bay were quite independent under 
the charter granted by Charles I, in 1629, which 
gave them extensive powers amounting almost to 



[9] 

self-government. This charter was annulled by 
a writ of quo warranto in 1684. Thus for many- 
years the Pilgrims of the Plymouth Colony and 
the Puritans of Massachusetts Bay were unvexed 
by any outside interference with the administra- 
tion of their own affairs. 

While Worcester is perhaps primarily known 
for its prominence in manufacturing, its industrial 
growth does not concern us now for it did not 
begin until after 1830. At the time of which we 
are now writing, the mills in Worcester were few 
in number and simple in character. Captain 
John Wing had a saw and grist mill as early as 
1685, north of Lincoln Square on Mill Brook. 
Another was that of Obadiah Ward, built about 
1717, also on Mill Brook on the site occupied later 
by the Crompton Loom Works. Elijah Chase 
built the first corn mill near where the paper mill 
at Quinsigamond was later located, on the Black- 
stone River. The water privilege, with thirty acres 
of land, was granted by the town to Captain 
Nathaniel Jones, September 12, 1717, upon the 
condition that he should complete and maintain a 
grist mill for twelve years. (He built a dam and 
saw mill in 1726, but both were probably swept 
away in the flood of 1728-29, and in 1732 the town 
took steps to recover the land by reason of the 
failure of Jones to comply with his contract.) Saw 
and grist mills with an occasional fulling mill and 
trip hammer shop represented the industries of 
the town and were adequate to supply the simple 
needs of a population of 200 people. In 1760 
potash was added as an article of manufacture. 



[10] 

The English Parliament, which inhibited almost 
all kinds of manufacturing in the colonies, thought 
that the production of potash would give them an 
article of export with which to pay for manufac- 
tured articles imported from Great Britain. The 
North American Plantations were thought to be 
well adapted to the making of potash by reason 
of the abundance of wood suitable for the pur- 
pose. 

Cloth was manufactured in a small way here in 
1789. The manufacture of paper took an early 
and prominent place among the industries of the 
colonies. Isaiah Thomas, who had brought the 
"Worcester Spy" from Boston to escape its cap- 
ture by the British and who had here a large 
business as a printer and publisher, erected a paper 
mill in January, 1793, at Quinsigamond village 
on the site of what is now the location of the 
American Steel & Wire Company. Zenas Crane, 
the grandfather of the late Governor and Senator 
W. M. Crane, worked in this mill. Paper had 
been made earlier in this vicinity and in insuffi- 
cient quantities because for this reason, on 
October 30, 1776, but one-half of "The Spy" 
could be published and on October 30, 1777, the 
following notice was published: 

"The paper mills and, of consequence, the 
printing offices in this county must inevitably 
stop unless the good people are more careful in 
preserving their rags. The advanced price of 3d. 
per lb. for clean linen rags is now given by the 
printers, which, together with the invaluable 
benefit which the public must derive from having 



[U] 

a plentiful supply of paper books, cannot fail of 
the desired effect." 

An early evidence of enterprise and public spirit 
is found in the desire, previous to 1796, to estab- 
lish communication between Worcester and the 
seaboard, first by making a canal to Providence 
and then by cutting one from the Great Pond in 
Worcester to Boston. Nothing was done, how- 
ever, with either project until 1822. 

This hasty survey up to 1800 of the simple 
industrial activities in Worcester must suffice and 
I now purpose to dwell upon the momentous 
political developments of the eighty years since 
1722, making some reference to the military oper- 
ations, in which the town of Worcester was 
largely involved. Perhaps I may well call atten- 
tion here to the fact that from Colonial days our 
people had been accustomed to war. The settlers 
in Virginia were unmolested for only a few years 
after they landed, when the savages fell upon 
them and on a single day killed over three hundred 
men, women and children. 

Our own Pilgrim Colony at Plymouth entered 
into a compact with the Indians which was faith- 
fully observed for over fifty years, but after that 
the settler was usually compelled to go armed 
about his daily duties and the gun was a familiar 
object at the head of the pew on Sunday. The 
site selected for the meeting house was usually 
some eminence from which it would be easy to see 
an enemy. For seventy years before 1763, when 
the Treaty of Peace between England and France 
was signed, there was almost constant warfare 



[12] 

between the French and the English and their 
Indian allies in the new world, and after a brief 
period of twelve years of peace, the colonies were 
engaged in the War of the Revolution. A state of 
irritation between the people of the Province of 
Massachusetts Bay and the Mother Country was 
more or less constantly in evidence, but the feeling 
of loyalty to England was very tenacious and the 
idea of separation was very reluctantly reached. 

As late as 1762, the government of the Province 
of Massachusetts Bay expressed to its agent in 
London its faith in the permanence of existing 
conditions in the following language: 

"We shall ever pray that our most gracious 
sovereign's life may be prolonged, and that he and 
his posterity may reign in Britain, and in British 
America till time shall be no more." None of the 
American agents in London then believed that 
the Colonies would think of disputing the Stamp 
Act at the point of the sword, and even James 
Otis said, ''It is our duty to submit." This was 
only thirteen years before the beginning of the 
war for independence. 

In 1767 the instructions of this town to its repre- 
sentative in the General Court were to ''use your 
influence to maintain and continue that harmony 
and good-will between Great Britain and this 
Province which may be most conducive to the 
prosperity of each," but a continuing purpose 
was manifest to preserve the rights of the colonies. 
It was only because no other course seemed open 
that the people ultimately resorted to arms. In 
the Revolutionary War and the wars that had 



[13] 

preceded it, Worcester was well represented. The 
fact should be noted here that a leading cause of 
the revolution was that the colonies resented the 
restriction placed upon their industrial activities 
by the Mother Country. The Earl of Chatham 
once said that the ''Colonists had no right to 
manufacture so much as a single horse shoe nail." 

In 1750 a law was passed by Parliament pro- 
hibiting the working of iron and declaring every 
mill for such purpose a common nuisance which 
Governors of the Province were bound to abate. 

The War of the Revolution stopped all imports 
from Great Britain and revived such domestic 
industries as had formerly existed. Upon the 
return of peace in 1783, the influx of goods threat- 
ened our manufacturing industries with ruin. 
The Revolution had been successful but had failed 
of its complete purpose. Everyone was in debt 
and many without resources. The desperate con- 
dition in which people found themselves led to 
an outbreak in Worcester in 1786 known as 
Shays's rebellion, the participants in which, in- 
cluding representatives from the surrounding 
towns, compelled the Court of Common Pleas to 
adjourn by forces of arms. The declaration of 
peace had brought no promise of prosperity or 
happiness to the country. We had no government 
worthy of the name. The Confederation of the 
States, a merest makeshift at best, had very little 
power. The people were afraid of a strong central 
government, the whole tendency having been to 
place all the power in the several states. The 
states levied the taxes, raised the military forces. 



[14] 

administered justice. Congress had no revenue 
and no courts. It could declare a war but was 
dependent upon the states for men and money to 
carry it on. It could make treaties but it could 
not enforce the obligations thus created. It 
could settle disputes between the states but had 
no power to enforce its decrees. Each state could 
enact a tariff and could prevent the passage of 
goods from other states across its borders. Mean- 
time war had destroyed the foreign commerce 
which could not be restored excepting under the 
administration of a government capable of making 
treaties, the terms of which could be fulfilled and 
enforced. Domestic trade was paralyzed. Added 
to all this was an irredeemable currency which 
brought with it the attendant ills of poverty and 
debt. A dissolution of this feeble league appeared 
to have begun in 1786. Rhode Island would send 
no delegates and New Jersey refused to pay her 
quota of the revenue. It is not within our pro- 
vince to dwell upon the circumstances attending 
the adoption of the Federal Constitution. Suffice 
it to say that after prolonged discussion, it was 
agreed upon in convention in September, 1787, 
and subsequently ratified by the states, but with 
extreme reluctance and against the strong opposi- 
tion of some conununities, including our own. 

In the Convention held in Boston in January, 
1788, to consider the adoption of the Federal Con- 
stitution, the vote in the affirmative was 187 and 
in the negative 168. Of the delegates from Wor- 
cester County, 8 favored the adoption of the Con- 
stitution and 43 were opposed. The delegates from 
the town of Worcester voted in the negative. 



[15] 

We may, with profit, before we enter upon the 
doings of another century, dwell for a moment 
upon the character and training of the Pilgrim and 
Puritan pioneers, who laid the foundations of our 
civilization. They were, perhaps, narrow and in 
some respects bigoted. Their characters were hard- 
ened by the daily struggle with the Indians to 
preserve their lives and with nature for a liveli- 
hood. This may have developed natures that 
were stern and forbidding, but these experiences 
bred into our people some great qualities which 
have leavened the entire lump of our national life. 
Our Puritan ancestors were made of stern stuff. 
Their entire polity was based upon their inter- 
pretation of the Bible. 

The Body of Liberties, the first code of laws in 
New England, established by the General Court in 
December, 1641, contain 12 capital laws, the penal- 
ty for breaking each of which is precisely the same 
as the penalty imposed in the Old Testament for 
like offenses and in all cases death. 

This condition, which we are apt at times to 
criticize, has been due to a principle which lay at 
the foundation of the religious life of the Puritan ; 
namely, that the individual man, wrestling with 
his conscience, must, through the grace of God, 
work out his own salvation. 

As John Fiske puts it in "The Beginnings of 
New England ": 

"Each single church tended to become an 
independent congregation of worshippers, con- 
stituting one of the most effective schools that 
has ever existed for training men in local self- 
government." 



[16] 

It has been said that if Thomas Jefferson con- 
fessed himself indebted to the business meeting 
of a Baptist Church for some of his best ideas of a 
democratic government, much more were John 
Adams and his New England compatriots beholden 
to their ecclesiastical surroundings for the Repub- 
lican tendencies of their politics. And he goes 
on to say that there has never been a society in the 
world in which theological problems have been 
so seriously and persistently discussed as in New 
England during the Colonial period, the questions 
raised in the learned arguments of the clergy, 
upon doctrinal points, occasioning subjects for 
earnest debate in every household because it was 
assumed that every individual must hold his own 
opinions, at his own personal risk in the world to 
come. Mr. Fiske further calls attention to the 
fact that according to the Puritan theory it was 
essential that everyone should be taught from early 
childhood how to read and understand the Bible 
and that in the diffusion of knowledge the Puritans 
were unwittingly preparing the complete and irre- 
parable destruction of the theocratic idea of so- 
ciety which they had sought to realize, by settling 
in New England, because universal education and 
the perpetual discussion of theological questions 
were no more compatible with adherence to the 
Calvinistic system than with submission to the 
absolute rule of Rome. In a word, if the Puritan 
system seems to us now to have been narrow and 
somewhat bigoted, it carried with it its own cure 
in free discussion and an insistence upon individual 
responsibility for one's actions, which has gradu- 



[17] 

ally led to the liberal and enlightened protestant- 
ism of to-day when all denominations and all 
religions live, side by side, and, usually, in sym- 
pathetic relations. We must not forget, certainly 
at this time, to express our appreciation of the 
Roman Catholic Church. To be sure, the Rever- 
end James Fitton did not begin his labors here until 
1834, but now, for ninety years, that Church has 
been a powerful influence for good in the com- 
munity. 

''She saw the commencement of all the govern- 
ments and of all the ecclesiastical establishments 
that now exist in the world," wrote Lord Ma- 
caulay; ''and we feel no assurance that she is not 
destined to see the end of them all. She was great 
and respected before the Saxon had set foot on 
Britain, before the Frank had crossed the Rhine, 
when Grecian eloquence still flourished in Antioch, 
when idols were still worshipped in the temple of 
Mecca, and she may still exist in undiminished 
vigor when some traveller from New Zealand shall, 
in the midst of a vast solitude, take his stand on a 
broken arch of London Bridge to sketch the ruins 
of St. Paul." 

There is something quite inspiring in the spirit 
that pervaded the family life of many of the simple 
homes of the pioneers. It was sometimes hard to 
make both ends meet. It was a constant fight to 
feed and clothe the children with only two pairs 
of hands to do all the work. But somehow it was 
done: the children were well trained; one of the 
family, perhaps — at what self-sacrificing cost — 
received a college education. I think that there is 



[18] 

more of pathos surrounding this simple experience 
of the leaving home of the country boy than almost 
any other. The long anticipated day has arrived. 
The patient mother ties up the simple bundle, add- 
ing some needed article supplied by her own 
scanty savings. She stands in the doorway and 
bravely says, "goodbye," while the boy, unmindful 
of the struggle which awaits him and of the prayers 
and the doubts that follow him, stops at the turn 
in the road to take a last look at his mother and 
the old red house. It was from such a home as 
this that Daniel Webster came. Speaking, in his 
later years, of his going to Dartmouth College, 
he said: 

"I remember the very hill we were ascending 
through the deep snows in a New England sleigh, 
when my father made his purpose known to me. 
I could not speak. I laid my head upon my 
father's shoulder and wept." 

To some of these fathers and mothers of the 
olden time, to their cheerful endurance of hardship 
and to their self-sacrifice, is due the reverent 
affection of their descendants. 

It is a somewhat striking fact that even the 
wisest men, at the close of the eighteenth century, 
seem to have been utterly blind to the approach 
of an era of phenomenal industrial growth and of 
great development in the field of invention; thus 
Benjamin Franklin wrote to John Adams in 1780: 

*' America will not make manufactures enough 
for her own consumption this thousand years," 
and Adams replied: 

"The principal interest of America for many 
centuries to come will be landed and our chief 



[19] 

occupation agriculture. Manufactures and com- 
merce will be but secondary objects and always 
subservient to the other." 

This is all the more surprising because Franklin 
was in England with the other Colonial Agents 
protesting to Lord Grenville against the Stamp 
Act, in the very year that James Watt was begin- 
ning his experiments with the steam engine, and 
he was still in Europe when, in 1769, Watt got his 
patent in which he explains the principles which 
were involved in the scientific development of his 
invention. If Franklin had been vouchsafed the 
gift of prophecy, he might have said : " I see steam 
and electricity, harnessed to the machinery of the 
world, making, in the next century, our own 
country the greatest among manufacturing na- 
tions. I see an immediate attendant evil in the 
factory system, in which men, women and children 
will be debased to the condition of the beasts of 
the field, and I see the evil removed before the 
corrective of humane legislation. I see the time 
in the not remote future when great cities will 
spring up in what is now a wilderness, where the 
silence is never broken save by the war whoop of 
the Indian or the hoot of the night owl. I see 
every part of our land bound together by bands 
of steel, product of our own mines, furnaces and 
mills, carrying the commerce of a great nation. 
I see its uttermost boundaries brought within the 
range of the human voice. I see a time when our 
descendants will gather from the air about them 
messages from their fellow men scattered over the 
surface of the earth — nay, more, I see seed now 



[20] 

being planted by that faithless monarch, Frederick 
the Great, in time, bear fruit and his kingdom 
become the dominating military power in Europe, 
threatening the very existence of France and of 
Great Britain; and I hear those great nations, less 
than seven score years hence, cry out to ours — not 
yet born, 'Help or we perish,' and I see the United 
States of America save them both from perhaps 
becoming vassal states of the German Empire." 

Such, as subsequent events have proved, might 
well have been Benjamin Franklin's message to 
John Adams in 1780, and yet he was no less 
conscious of the wonders to be worked after his 
time than are the wisest of us to-day. 

The feeling of skepticism in regard to the intro- 
duction of mechanical and other improvements was 
not confined to this country. 

The Academy of Science in France, when con- 
sulted by Napoleon at the beginning of the Nine- 
teenth Centm-y as to the steamboat, spoke of it as 
"a mad idea, a gross error, and absurdity." When 
Fulton's first steamboat made the trip from New 
York to Albany in 1807, it happened to be the 
17th of August, which caused many preachers to 
curse the machine on the ground that seventeen 
was the total of the horns and the seven heads of 
the beast of the Apocalypse. It was not until 
after 1830 that our manufactures developed, for 
it was not until 1835 that the construction of our 
railways was vigorously commenced or that steam 
was availed of to any considerable extent for 
motive power. The Reverend Edward Everett 
Hale once told me that Judge Merrick, meeting 



[21] 

Samuel Slater, the pioneer cotton manufacturer, 
on the street in Worcester, said: 

"Mr. Slater, Worcester will never be a manu- 
facturing town because we have so little water 
power." 

Mr. Slater said in reply: 

"Judge Merrick, you may live to see the time 
when Worcester will need all the water of Mill 
Brook to provide the steam for her steam engines." 

This conversation must have occurred about 
1830. It is hard to realize that William A. 
Wheeler, who is credited with having installed 
in 1825, in Worcester, the first steam engine in the 
state west of Boston, should have discarded it 
and used horse power until 1840 when he put in 
another engine. William T. Merrifield, at the 
same time put in an engine of from four to six 
horse power. These were probably the first 
efl&cient steam engines in Worcester. Beginning, 
however, in 1830 and particularly after 1835, when 
the railroad was opened to Boston, the industrial 
growth of Worcester has been steady and rapid. 
The Blackstone Canal connected Worcester and 
Providence and was in active operation from 1828 
until 1848. We were connected by rail with the 
western part of the state in 1839 ; with New London 
in 1840; with Nashua in 1846; with Providence in 
1848; with Winch endon in 1874. It will thus be 
seen that from an early day Worcester had the 
advantages of the best railroad facilities. To this 
and to the general introduction of steam power is 
to be most largely attributed her rapid growth as 
a manufacturing city. 



[22] 

In 1889 there was not only direct communica- 
tion with all points north and south, but there were 
five outlets and thirteen different lines, more or 
less, affording direct conununication with the West. 

It is impossible within the confines of this 
address to give in any detail the history of Wor- 
cester's industrial development, nor is it necessary; 
we know the fact that it has caused a growth in 
population from a town of 4,000 in 1830 to a city 
of 180,000 in 1922. We know that Worcester 
products are sent to all parts of the world and 
that, in some kinds of manufactures, Worcester 
occupies a position of industrial primacy. 

I have mentioned some of the reasons for this 
but not all. In addition to the introduction of 
steam, have been the unusual opportunities offered 
to mechanics to begin business in a small way 
and without incurring the risk incident to the 
building and equipment of a shop. Indeed, had 
this not been the case, many individuals, com- 
panies and corporations doing a prosperous 
business to-day would never have existed. Many 
instances might be given of individuals who have 
begun with one machine, gradually increasing their 
business until it has reached considerable magni- 
tude. Growth of this kind is likely to be perma- 
nent. It is not perhaps literally true to-day, but 
it was a few years ago, that no manufacturing 
business long established in Worcester but has at 
one time or another occupied space in one or 
another of the buildings for rent with power to 
tenants. The oldest building of this type was the 
Old Court Mill at Lincoln Square, the cradle of 



[23] 

the machine tool business in Worcester. The 
Dr. Heywood building in Central Street, the 
Merrifield building, the Estabrook building at the 
Junction, these were all veritable hives of industry. 
This is one of the chief causes of the diversity of 
manufactures in Worcester, a striking contrast to 
some of our New England cities dependent upon 
the prosperity of a single industry. Properly to 
take advantage of the opportunities here offered, 
an intelligent people was needed. Enterprise and 
sagacity have always been characteristic of the 
leading business men in Worcester, early mani- 
fested in appreciation of the importance of com- 
munication with the seaboard and secured by the 
building of the Blackstone Canal and later by the 
building of the railroads. But there is better 
evidence than this of the wisdom and foresight 
of the men who laid the foundation of Worcester's 
prosperity. A desire for opportunities for educa- 
tion was manifest at a very early day. In 1819 a 
number of young mechanics who had been active 
in reforming the schools and establishing a lyceum 
and temperance society, made an attempt to form 
a Mechanics Association. This failed, but in 1841 
a public meeting was held and a committee was 
appointed to consider the formation of an asso- 
ciation having as its object 

"The moral, intellectual and social improve- 
ment of its members, the perfection of the mech- 
anic arts and the pecuniary assistance of the 
needy." 

The first meeting was held in 1842. Steps were 
taken to establish a library and an annual course 



[24] 

of lectures. The first lecture was by Elihu Burritt 
and was upon the importance of educating the 
mechanics and working men of the country. 
From that time to the present, the Mechanics 
Association has provided a course of lectures every 
winter. Another object in forming the Associa- 
tion was the holding of an annual fair for the ex- 
hibition of the mechanical products of the city. 
The first was held in 1848. The Association 
erected the building in which we are assembled 
this evening, which was dedicated in March, 1857. 
There has been a great change in our population 
during all these years. Up to 1840 manual labor 
was, for the most part, performed by Americans. 
Worcester naturally attracted boys from the 
country and the farmers' sons became our me- 
chanics. About this time, as a result of the 
famine at home, Irish immigration began. The 
Irishman became an important factor in our 
industrial development and indispensable to our 
material progress. Since 1880, a large Scandinavian 
population has been added to Worcester and is a 
very valuable part of our community and indus- 
trial life. A little later we had a considerable 
immigration from Southern Europe. Over 53,000 
of our population are foreign born. 

There is to me much of tragedy in the experi- 
ence of the immigrant, whether he came hither 
in the Mayflower three hundred years ago or land- 
ed at Castle Garden yesterday. There was an 
impelling force which compelled the breaking of 
the home ties, the most sacred and the most 
tenacious known to the human heart. In some 



[251 

cases fear of starvation; in others, persecution 
for religious or other causes, or the hard conditions 
that could no longer be endured. The father and 
the mother in tears and agony of spirit, collect 
their simple belongings. The scanty savings, with 
perhaps aid from friends and neighbors, are 
scarcely sufficient to carry them to the New 
World. The voyage is full of terror and physical 
discomfort. The parents are in some respects as 
helpless as their children. They arrive in the 
new country where perhaps a language strange to 
them is spoken, nearly penniless and not knowing 
where or how to earn their bread. Work is at last 
obtained, and a start is made. The children are 
in time sent to school and slowly, painfully so in 
many cases, a precarious and then a more secure 
footing in the new land is obtained. The parents 
cling to their native language as the one tie that 
binds them to the home land. The children 
rapidly acquire the language of the new country 
and become the teachers of their parents. Out 
of these humble homes have come some of our 
best citizens, both men and women. I would like 
to see a monument erected in one of our public 
squares to the immigrant. It would challenge the 
genius of the greatest artist to depict the emotions 
of the human heart which should be seen stamped 
upon those faces — despair, fear, hope, and the 
final victory over hard conditions. America, 
among all the countries of the earth, is where these 
experiences are most common. They are a part 
of our daily life. In a sense there is no native 
population of many generations; we have all, 



[26] 

either through our ancestors or ourselves, fled 
hither from the hand of the oppressor, or from 
other conditions that could no longer be endured, 
or to seek better opportunities. In our schools, 
which we have always cherished, the children of 
over thirty nationalities are taught the funda- 
mental elements of American Citizenship, chief 
among which is the first declaration in the Con- 
stitution of Massachusetts that ''All men are 
born free and equal." 

Worcester had taken active interest in all the 
political events of the Nineteenth Century. Our 
people, being largely of the Federalist Party, were 
opposed to the policies of Jefferson, to the em- 
bargo of 1807 and to the War of 1812, both of 
which were damaging to our commercial interests. 
Slavery had hung like a cloud over the country 
almost since the adoption of the Constitution; 
and when, in 1828, the South, independent of the 
tariff, because of her cheap cotton, made possible 
by Eh Whitney's invention of the cotton gin, 
enunciated the doctrine that a state could nullify 
within its limits a Federal Act, Civil War, if this 
doctrine were adhered to, became a certainty. 
Then came the demand for the emancipation of 
the slaves. January 1, 1831, was published for 
the first time in Boston, by William Lloyd Garri- 
son, a paper called ''The Liberator," which de- 
manded the "immediate and unconditional eman- 
cipation of every slave held in the United States." 

Men like Mr. Garrison believed that the negro 
should be free, even if it necessitated the destruc- 
tion of the Union. On the other hand, many men 



[27] 

opposed to slavery thought that the Union with 
slavery was better than no Union. Daniel Webster 
held this view, and so at first did Abraham Lincoln. 
In spite of the Compromise of 1820, which shut out 
slavery from the territory west and north of 
Missouri, the South demanded the right to in- 
troduce it into the territory of Nebraska; and 
Senator Stephen A. Douglass, in 1854, introduced 
the Kansas-Nebraska bill which divided the 
Territory of Nebraska into two parts, the southern- 
most of which was called Kansas; and proposed 
that the settlers should determine whether they 
would have slavery or not. Congress, much to 
the indignation of the people of the North, passed 
the bill, thus in effect repealing the Compromise 
of 1820. There was now a great struggle to see 
whether the territory should be settled by those 
favorable to or opposed to slavery. The slave- 
holders of Missouri began a settlement at Atchison 
and those opposed, largely emigrants from New 
England, settled at Lawrence. The conflict was 
such that the territory was known as "bleeding 
Kansas." Finally the opponents of slavery pre- 
vailed and Kansas was admitted as a state, with- 
out slavery, in 186 L Eli Thayer of Worcester took 
a leading part in settling Kansas with the oppo- 
nents of slavery. His marble bust now has a 
place in the State House at Topeka. 

Charles Allen made a bitter attack on the Whig 
Party, for its toleration of slavery, in the City 
Hall in Worcester in 1848, and his brother, the 
Reverend George Allen, for many years a minister 
in Shrewsbury, introduced the following resolu- 



128] 

tion which became a shibboleth of the Free Soil 
Party. 

"Resolved, That Massachusetts wears no chains 
and spurns all bribes. That she goes now and will 
ever go for Free Soil and Free Men, for free lips 
and a free press, for a free land and a free world." 

Worcester's military record in the Civil War 
was highly creditable. On April 14, 1861, news 
of the evacuation of Fort Sumter reached Worces- 
ter. On the evening of April 16, Charles Devens 
urged the people, gathered in great numbers in 
this hall, to rally to the support of the country. 

On April 19 the Light Infantry attached to the 
6th regiment of State Militia passed through 
Baltimore and were quartered in the Senate 
Chamber in Washington, the first military regi- 
ment from a state to report with arms and equip- 
ment complete. "Thank God you have got here," 
said Abraham Lincoln to Colonel Jones as he 
stepped from the train. ''If you had not come to- 
night, the Capitol would have been in the hands 
of the rebels before morning." 

The City Guards, the Emmet Guards and seven 
regiments followed at intervals. 

During the war many of our shops were busy 
day and night manufacturing arms, ammunition 
and equipment. 

During the fifty years and more of peace that 
followed, excepting for the war with Spain in 
which Worcester had an honorable part, we were 
free from any great national castastrophe. Our 
industrial prosperity had made us the richest 
nation in the world; our energies were largely 



[29] 

devoted to getting and spending. The Federal 
government made no direct demand upon us for 
taxes and no demand of any sort for service, so 
that we naturally came to regard the nation as a 
sort of benevolent institution from which aid 
might naturally be expected but to which none 
need be given. That this was a dangerous attitude 
of mind I think all will agree. 

But soon all this was changed. We became part 
of the great world catastrophe. The forces of 
nature which we had appropriated to the use of 
man to such a marvellous extent were availed 
of with dreadful efficiency in the destruction of 
human life and property, not only on the earth 
beneath but in the heavens above and in the water 
under the earth. 

It seemed in those awful days of war that the 
Almighty was speaking in tones of thunder that 
could be heard above the cannon's roar and the 
din of battle — 

''I will shake the heavens and the earth and the 
sea and the dry land and I will shake all nations 
. . . and this word signifieth the removing of 
those things that are shaken as of things that are 
made, that those things which cannot be shaken 
may remain." 

If you would know how we acquitted ourselves 
on land and sea, you have but to raise your eyes 
to our city's service flag with its 13,000 stars of 
blue and 327 stars of gold, shining emblem of 
supreme sacrifice. From Chemin des Dames 
through the final terrors of St. Mihiel and the 
Argonne forest, the record made by Worcester's 



[30] 

soldiers stands as a series of brilliant achievements. 
To these brave men and to the lads in blue of the 
Navy who convoyed our troops over the stormy 
waters of the Atlantic, infested by the piratical 
U-Boats and to those brave nurses who ministered 
to our wounded and djdng, we pay the tribute of 
reverent appreciation and heartfelt gratitude. 
Of those who stayed at home, men and women, I 
can say with truth that no similar community in 
the country has a record of war work superior to 
ours. And now, my friends, my tale is nearly told. 
It is, of course, impossible to recite the deeds of 
two hundred years in less than half as many 
minutes. No one is more conscious than I of what 
has been left unsaid, but we must not fail to 
mention the names of some of those who for one 
reason or another have been conspicuous in the 
history of this town. Otherwise we would seem 
to lack in appreciation of what they have done for 
us. We would fail in our duty to our children if 
we were not to commend to their grateful attention 
those whose works have conferred such great 
blessings upon them. 

Let me call the illustrious roll. Would that we 
could summon them from the spirit world to 
receive our homage: 

Ephraim Curtis, first white settler of Worcester 
and Indian fighter, who, sitting on a stump and 
looking in the direction of his old home in Sudbury, 
wept at his remoteness from civilization. 

Daniel Gooktn, friend of Eliot, Superinten- 
dent of the Praying Indians. ''Father of Wor- 
cester. " 



[31] 

DiGORY Sargent, who refused to retreat before 
the Indians in 1702 and was later killed and 
scalped by them and his family made captive. 

Timothy Bigelow, blacksmith at Lincoln 
Square; delegate from Worcester to the Provincial 
Congress. Captain of the Minute men who led 
his company from Worcester to Cambridge, April 
19, 1775. Major, then Colonel; at the storming of 
Quebec; at the taking of General Burgoyne; at 
Valley Forge with Washington. Now buried on 
the Common. 

Levi Lincoln, Sr., Soldier in the Revolutionary 
War, lawyer, Judge of Probate; delegate to the 
Convention that framed the Constitution of 
Massachusetts; Attorney General of the United 
States in the Cabinet of Thomas Jefferson. Gover- 
nor of the State. Associate Justice of the Supreme 
Court of the United States. 

Levi Lincoln, Jr., Member of the Massachu- 
setts Senate and Speaker of the House; Lieutenant 
Governor; Governor. Justice of the Supreme 
Judicial Court; Representative in Congress and 
Collector of the Port of Boston. First Mayor of 
the City of Worcester. 

Isaiah Thomas, owner of the ''Worcester Spy," 
the first newspaper in New England to print the 
Declaration of Independence, read by him to our 
people on the steps of the Old South Church; 
first Postmaster of Worcester, appointed by Ben- 
jamin Franklin; widely known as printer and pub- 
lisher. Founder of the American Antiquarian 
Society. 



[32] 

Aaron Bancroft, a soldier at Lexington and 
Bunker Hill; clergyman in Worcester for more 
than fifty years. Defender of religious liberty. 

Dr. John Green, a great physician. Founder 
of the Green Library. 

Honest John Davis, Representative in House 
and Senate of the Congress of the United States. 
Governor of Massachusetts; leader of the Bar; 
classical scholar. 

Stephen Salisbury, a name borne by three 
generations. The first a prosperous merchant 
who lived in Salisbury Mansion at Lincoln Square. 
The second and the third, philanthropists and 
pubUc spirited citizens; both friends and supporters 
of the Polytechnic in time of need; the last of the 
name, founder of the Worcester Art Museum. 

Charles Allen, lawyer, judge, legislator, 
Abolitionist. One of the founders of the Free 
Soil Party. 

IcHABOD Washburn, creator of the wire indus- 
try in Worcester. Founder of the Memorial 
Hospital and of the Washburn Shop of the Poly- 
technic. Prominent in all good works. 

Seth Sweetser, Calvinist minister of the 
Central Church, through whose counsels John 
Boynton planted the Polytechnic in Worcester. 

George Bancroft, historian of the United 
States. 

Emory Washburn, lawyer, judge. Governor, 
author. 

James Fitton, missionary and priest; founder 
of the College of the Holy Cross. 



[33] 

ELrau BuRRiTT, the learned blacksmith ac- 
quainted with fifty languages; preacher of inter- 
national peace. 

Abby Kelly Foster, Abolitionist, pioneer 
advocate of equal political rights for men and 
women. 

Jonas G. Clark, founder of Clark University. 

Alexander H. Bullock, legislator; Mayor of 
Worcester; Speaker of the Massachusetts House; 
Governor; orator. 

Eli Thayer, Member of Congress; organizer 
of the Emigrant Aid Society to make Kansas a 
free state. ' ' I would rather, ' ' said Charles Sumner, 
''accomplish what Eli Thayer has done than have 
won the battle of New Orleans." 

Charles Devens, lawyer; soldier; judge. In 
command of the 15th regiment at Balls Bluff. 
Attorney General in the Cabinet of President 
Hayes. Chivalrous gentleman. 

Edward Everett Hale, Unitarian clergyman. 
Author of many books; wrote here the greatest 
lesson in patriotism in the English language, ''A 
Man Without a Country." Editor; friend of the 
weak and unfortunate; pubUc spirited citizen. 

Russell L. Hawes, inventor of envelope ma- 
chinery which gave Worcester a leading position 
in this great industry. 

George F. Hoar, scholar; lawyer; orator; 
statesman; inheriting by birth the best traditions 
of the earlier days. A champion of the Free Soil 
Party. 



134] 

John J. Power, better known as "Father 
Power," Roman Catholic priest; a father to his 
people; a sympathetic brother to his fellow men; 
patriotic citizen. 

George Crompton and Lucius J. Knowles, 
whose inventive talent and enterprise have made 
Worcester known the world over as a producer 
of textile machinery. 

William R. Huntington, minister of the Epis- 
copal Church ; a leader in his day. 

"And what shall I more say? for the time would 
fail me to tell of Gideon and of Barak, and of 
Samson and of Jephthah; of David also, and 
Samuel and of the prophets; who through faith 
subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, ob- 
tained promises, stopped the mouths of lions. 
Quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of 
the sword, out of weakness were made strong, 
waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies 
of the aliens." 

And yet we would not forget the thousands upon 
thousands of artisans and laborers who, in grime 
and sweat, have worked with hands and picks and 
shovels. They all deserve our grateful recognition 
on this occasion. Without their labor there would 
be little of a material sort upon which we could 
dwell with pride to-day. 

This bare recital compels a feeling of great 
respect for the character, of great admiration for 
the achievements of those who have preceded us, 
which must increase our sense of duty to future 
generations, the more fully we appreciate our debt 
to those of the past. 



[35] 

While not unmindful of our own shortcomings, 
we may yet venture to hope that we are trans- 
mitting unimpaired to our descendants the rich 
heritage we have received. 

To maintain and to enrich it is a great trust 
which we confide to them. Conditions will be 
different, perhaps more onerous, but we have 
abundant faith. 

New occasions teach new duties. 
Time makes ancient good uncouth; 
They must upward still and onward 
Who would keep abreast with truth. 



